Sunday, August 24, 2014

Apparently, the market is always ripe for a procedurally-generated, open world Voxel-based game, or so some developers think. Some of the minds behind Hello Games, Lionhead and EA have come together in a crowd-funded project to create one such game called Oort Online.

While at first glance, Oort Online is a lot like a Minecraft clone and it doesn’t really bring anything new to the table, at a closer look, it unveils some interesting potential.

The “setting” of the game is a vast universe made up of a large number of worlds each of them featuring a different graphical theme and different resources in order to encourage player exploration.

The different worlds are populated by Protectors, whose sole goal is to make life more difficult for players, who will have to defeat them alone or cooperatively, in order to claim land through a set of beacons and to gain loot. Those who successfully claim their land are then able to build pretty much whatever they want to.

The game – which is currently a blank slate obviously – will be heavily dependent on player-created content. The developers are hoping for player-created politics and eventually conflict. The ultimate goal of the game is to become a sort of second home for players – not something unprecedented either.

Those really looking forward to play this are already able to do so for $95, by gaining early access to the prototype. While the crowd-funding campaign has only just started for Oort Online, the game has in fact been in development since 2013, so there actually is a prototype version to purchase.

Thus far, the community reception of Oort Online was muted at best. While there are some who are genuinely excited about it, most players consider it little more than an updated Minecraft clone which blends together several successful past trends topped off with an RPG element.

Philip Thalberg is a member of the GosuGamers crew. Gosugamers is the top destination for eSports rankings and news.